#and shes done fuckall still

[beautiful-lively]

.

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[imaginaryanon]

my inquisition replay has led me places i wouldn't go with a gun (<- just left hawke in the fade)

[mossflower]

song so good it singlehandedly revives a five year old backburner project

[kindlyfunkn]

"store closes in an hour come on we have to go hurry!" mf its so late we can go get groceries tomorrow. she put up a fuss about that because "we dont really have anything" I MADE AN ENTIRE POT OF GOULASH YESTERDAY WE HAVE ENOUGH. FOR. ONE. DAY.

"we dont have any milk though:/" uh yeah we do. oh wait right you refuse to drink 1% even if your life depends on it. meanwhile when i run out of 1% i put up with drinking her 3.25% even though it taste like cream to me. and anyway you can survive off no milk for what? your cereal? we dont have any of that either dumbass youre not gonna be drinking anything anyway

god shes so ridiculous about EVERYTHING i know i sound upset about nothing but i literally thought we were going grocery shopping tomorrow when shes. yknow. not off at 8 in the fucking night and home at 9. we have eggs. we have oatmeal. we have a whole meal food in the fridge. we have frozen veggies. there is enough there for breakfast and supper (she can get fast food for lunch at work its what she always does (or did before realizing that oh! the leftovers in the fridge can be put in a container and reheated at your workplace! who knew! not her bc she never fucking cooks anything yet assumes im making these multiple servings all for myself) and i dont have it) between the both of us for tomorrow and then we can go shopping. so easy. so simple. stress free. and she makes a big stink about it bc shes incapable of thinking logically ffs

[inkstainedhandswithrings]

Thoughts on TBB S3 ep8!!

PABUU

poor omega feeling guilty

and crosshair being protective again <33

Cross meeting Tech’s girl for the first time

“Transmission from Phee” “Who?”

“Bounty Hunter Fennec Shand” “Who?”

Cross morphing into an owl?

Fennec really earns her rep

Badass girly

“You think it’s in my head” and the angry storm off

*sigh* yeah I figured that’d happen at some point. Psychosomatic symptoms after trauma are common and hard to overcome or even accept (trust me I know)

I wanna hug him🥺🤍

THE WHOLE SCENE WITH OMEGA AND CROSS WHERE SHE TRIES TO COMFORT HIM AND HES NOT AS ABRASIVE WITH HER FOR SUGGESTING THE SAME RHING AZI DID

AAAAHHHHHHH

this rlly was the last reaction I expected to have to the last season of bad batch

just rolling in a pool of my own tears over Crosshair and omega

Goddamn these show runners know what’s up

Crocodiles in the river

Who woulda guessed

(me, i would’ve guessed)

The way the crocodile fucking yoinked Hunter hahahahahhaba

Fennec casually calling Hunter a broke bitch

These two will end up fucking

You heard it here first folks!

“I’m the… lookout?” what she’s saying is “I’m gonna sit on my ass and do fuckall :)”

Their target (whatever the fuck his name is) is the stuff of nightmares

Grossest ass creature I ever did see

CROSSHAIR MEDITATING HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

poor guy

“vegan daughter making me do spiritual shit I don’t understand but I love her too much to tell her this is bullshit send help”

but the hand hold was cute as fuck

Honestly Fennec is mother

I love her

I hope we get to see her more

Also the fact that we got both Phee and Fennec in one ep

Like TWO badass women of colour?

good soup honestly

I think this was our first filler? Which is fine, I get they can’t give us super plot driven shit every time and filler (when done well) can be really good and round out the story really well.

Overall I was a bit bored at times but still had casual fun watching. But again noticing that the writers are bending over backwards to avoid showing us Echo. And I wouldn’t’ve minded seeing Rex again either, but I’m sure he’s gonna come up again with the way the story is unfolding. I think he’s gonna have a bigger role other than one episode appearance for the girlies this season and I am READY!!

[zorilleerrant]

9 Seconds to an Hour

@flashfictionfridayofficial

T-axis is tired. He doesn’t need to sleep; this is absolutely going to fuck with his biorhythm, but his physical needs are pinned to chronological time, so he’s. Fine. Ostensibly. He can keep this up indefinitely. Ostensibly.

His day has been 72 hours long so far unless he lost count somewhere in the middle and, face it, he probably did.

There’s a time loop, somewhere. It’s not his timeloop. It would be easier if it were his timeloop. It would be easiest if it were Tau’s timeloop, but she wasn’t on duty, and he’s afraid to stop long enough to get her, especially if all this nonsense hasn’t gotten her attention yet. The timeloop is only 9 seconds long and he doesn’t know what happens if it runs out.

Supposedly, a nuke will go off.

Most likely, it’s some kind of alien weaponry, and most likely, no one knows what it actually does, but strap enough conventional explosives to the thing and, most likely, it’s going to increase the yield. And, whatever it does, he doesn’t want to see a major center of foot traffic leveled any more than he wants to see the city turned into a hot zone, although he’d happily admit to a little more worry the planet could split in half.

Wasn’t there someone whose planet split in half? He doesn’t remember. No time to find them, anyway, and what could they do about it even if he did?

T-axis started off the day completely fine, you know. He went by the book and jumped back to the start of shift to warn people, and the start of the last shift when it took longer than that, but preparations clearly started more than a day ago, and no chain of events he’s been able to set off has done fuckall to any of it. He’s seen such a wide array of his colleagues die they won’t even notice by the time he comes out of it, because he’ll be treating everyone different. And still. The fountain continues on as it always has.

By the time he realized he needed to jump back farther, he was already too tired to remember the confirmation codes. All the colors are blurring together behind his eyes. It’s all he can do to tell them magenta tadpole by rote every time, as his muscles burn with the tension that’s the only thing following him back.

He’s not going to be able to have lunch in this square again. Shame. Good pizza.

He waits until the world starts to flicker, and he stays as long as he can. If there’s an end condition staring him in the face, he doesn’t know it. It’s not tied to the bomb itself, whatever this time loop is, or it isn’t right now. He jumps back. Grateful for the hedge. He’d jump anyway, but there’d be more to do, and he doesn’t want to think about all the things to do, so. Yay, hedge. If there’s one good thing about weeks of planning, whoever set this up isn’t anywhere around to watch him take apart the device over and over.

The timeloop isn’t linked to the inert device, or the active one. There’s no change to it that might serve as an anchor point; as far as T-axis can tell, there’s no change at all. But there’s something, because no matter when or how he disassembles it, there it is, in the timeloop, ready to go off again. It’s a failsafe. It must be. It must be here somewhere.

How far back does he have to jump to grab a nap? He probably can’t nap while his body is this wired, but he could jump back to before bed last night. Did anything important happen this morning, before work? Nothing vital, probably. Nothing earth-shattering.

He oversleeps, and the world ends. He forgets something while he’s dreaming, and the world ends. Someone finds him in that pause, and the world ends. He doesn’t even know if they’re following him yet, or they already did, or someone somewhere is playing out their little mind games and all of it is for nothing anyway.

T-axis is so goddamn tired.

He examines the device, through the yellow orange hum of a flickering timeloop, trying to keep his hands in place as the winds of chronology press against him.

The fountain burbles.

He looks at the device, matte black before it’s powered on, one little blinking white light at the bottom to signify, who knows, something. It isn’t the link to the loop, that’s for sure, but it always turns off when he rips the wires out, so it might just be that.

The fountain burbles.

He brings someone in to dismantle the device telekinetically, and they explode. He brings someone in to dismantle the device magically, and they explode. He brings someone in to dismantle the device technopathically, and they explode. Inert or active, dismantle, destroy, unmake, copy, shield, change, move – anything done to it with anything but bare human hands causes just that person and no one else to melt apart and shower the place in gore with a quiet bang, like a firework in the far, far distance.

The fountain burbles.

It doesn’t help to bring in more human hands. Besides, he’s seen enough of the experts dismantle it by now that he couldn’t forget how if he tried.

The fountain burbles.

It used to be a soothing sound, before he spent more hours than a day should have listening to it mock him while he worked. He doesn’t want to set off explosives near the device, of course, but pipes come from somewhere, and a good session with a sledgehammer is just what he needs. The department can pay the city, if it even sticks around.

The change, not the city. God, he hopes the city sticks around.

The fountain stops burbling. The light on the device flickers, slowly dying, and fades off. The timeloop doesn’t trigger. The bomb is still counting down, but the timeloop isn’t, and finally, finally, progress.

He tries it six more times to make sure it keeps working, and it’s more cathartic every time, and he’s pretty sure they can just turn the water off when it comes down to it, but that’s not his problem. That’s what the oral report is for, and he gives it.

They shut off the water. They get an actual bomb tech in to take it apart, alien bits and all. T-axis moves his fingers along in sync, but he wouldn’t have done anything different.

[cambria-writes]

i did it. it's finally done. it's over, and i finished it.

thank you so much to everyone who's followed me and this story, who's commented, liked and reblogged. you've all helped give me back something i had lost a long time ago: the ability to write.

i'm so thankful to have found this fandom and the people in it, and i wouldn't change a single thing about the journey that was writing Ravenloft.

some things to know about this chapter:

i only discovered literally two days ago that july 1st is not, in fact, universal moving day. that's apparently something very unique to my part of canada lol, so that's why i had the moving take place that day. might not have even registered for anyone else but me but i felt like i should explain that just in case.

additionally, i don't know fuckall about indiana, never been. the market place arena is no longer there, either, so it took a bit of guesswork to figure out what to do. thank you to @bramblequill for answering my very strange questions. ♥

lastly, i have no idea how school works in the states. i just went with september 2nd as back to school since it was the tuesday right after labour day, and the internet told me that 8:30am as a starting time for classes was reasonable so there we go.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: E, 18+ warnings: SMUT, female anatomy used but otherwise no real physical description, fingering, masturbation (m and f), cum swallowing, so much swearing, Wayne calls Eddie son and reader calls Wayne his father, smoking (cigarettes and weed), alcohol consumption, vague reference to choking, mention of flagging/the hanky code, Eddie doesn't whip out the sadism though, mention of using handcuffs, i guess this is semi-public sex actually, Eddie's a gentleman though, mention of an alternate timeline where Eddie does die, mention of death broadly, reader has anxious responses to shit sometimes, Good Girl is said a few times, god I'm running out of brain RAM please let me know if I should tag anything else! word count: 7,512

thank you again!!

Previous Masterlist

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕹𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔓𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯𝔰 ℌ𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨

July 2nd, 19863:27AM

You don’t know where you are when you first wake up. There are no lights on, there’s a familiar but distant sound, and it’s too fucking warm. After a few seconds of tensely paying attention, you realize that the familiar sound is the compressor in the fridge.

Right. You moved yesterday.

When you bother to open your eyes and look around, you realize why it’s so dark. You never bothered to plug in your alarm clock and you can’t see the time on the stove from here, but it’s definitely still night. Quiet enough that it’s probably not even 4am yet.

You roll to turn around, but promptly end up yelping and falling right on your ass. The vague but bitter thought crosses your mind that you’ve somehow developed a habit of falling and injuring yourself in whatever bedroom you occupy.

Said bedroom door cracks open slowly. From your spot on the floor, you get to see a very tired Eddie—is he even actually awake?—slowly emerge from the opening door.

“Fuck was that,” he mutters, right before unhinging his jaw to yawn. You sigh and let yourself fall back on the floor, limp, staring up at a ceiling fan that refuses to work.

“Forgot where I was,” you say quietly, throwing an arm over your eyes. “Go back to bed dude.”

Eddie grunts, but you don’t hear the tell-tale squeaking and creaking of floorboards. Instead, when you move your arm out of the way just enough to see, you catch Eddie scratching the back of his head and looking back to the hallway. He clears his throat, and you cover your eyes again before he catches you staring.

He probably caught you staring way too much yesterday, so you’re not sure why it matters. It’s not like he’d make a big deal out of it anyways—not the way Steve and Robin did when they were helping you carry the sectional couch Mrs Henderson insisted you take from her basement.

(It’s fine, she had said, I can’t really look at that old thing anymore, she said. You didn’t ask, but you’d assumed that it was the same as everyone in Hawkins; just trying to get rid of all the leftovers from The Earthquake and what had preceded it.)

You’re jostled out of your thoughts when you feel Eddie’s shoulder—bare, from the cut-out Black Sabbath shirt he’s warning—against yours. He feels cool and clammy, like he’d been tossing and turning around in the heat, too.

“Ahh,” he sighs, folding his hands over his chest. “You had the right idea. Floor’s cold. Fuck this heat.”

You hum in agreement, and turn your head to properly look at Eddie.

“You could go back home,” you say quietly. When you don’t get an answer after a few seconds, you scoff lightly and turn to stare back at the ceiling. “At least he wouldn’t be boiling alive.”

You nearly squawk when you feel a hand taping on your hip. When you turn to look at Eddie again, his eyes are closed, still, but he’s very clearly frowning.

“Y’r being stupid,” he mutters, taking a deep breath before forcing himself to sit up, leaning back on his hands. He rotates his shoulders and—and he’s saying something else, you know he is. But there’s... there’s something about his shoulders.

Have they always been that wide?

You know your mouth is hanging open when Eddie turns to look back at you, and you only snap it shut with a click when you see him grinning.

“Didn’t catch a word I just said, huh.”

You try to speak a first time, but your voice cracks on the first syllable. Clear your throat and cough once or twice before trying again. This time you get yourself up on your feet and head for the door.

“Not a word. Too tired. Want a beer?”

Eddie blinks at you owlishly for a second before letting himself fall back to the floor. You’re about to take that as a silent refusal when he grumbles.

“Do you even know what time it is? Beer?”

You scoff again and cross your arms from your place at the door.

“What, like you do?”

Eddie simply raises an arm in response. You frown, open your mouth to ask why the fuck he’s raising his hand in your damn house, when you notice the watch still on his wrist.

(You try not to remember a very different, broken watch keeping time for the dead.)

“Right, well,” you dither, clearing your throat again. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Do you want a beer or not?”

Eddie sighs, putting on a show about being put out and disappointed and too tired, but the hand he rests low on your back to herd you out of the room is gentle. The quiet ‘sure’ he whispers also sounds far too caring and indulgent.

You practically inhale half of the first beer you pull from the fridge. If Eddie’s got any thoughts about that, he keeps them to himself. You sit down at the table—square, angular, nothing like the one that was in your hideout—and lean back in a chair that still smells like sawdust and campfire.

Leaning back in his own chair across from you, Eddie takes a slow look around. You see him pause to look at what you’ve already put up on the fridge. There’s a character sheet, a small pebble that’s been glued to a magnet, a note from your parents and a small magnetic photo frame. You can already feel your face heat up when Eddie points at it.

“That wasn’t there when we had pizza,” he says, slowly and a bit incredulously. You can only hold his gaze for a second or two when he turns to you for answers.

“I, uh,” you stutter, biting your lip and picking at the label of the bottle in your hands. “That’s—my mom, uh.”

It’s a polaroid.

By any other metric, completely unremarkable. Unnoticeable, probably, to anyone whose face isn’t actually on the damn thing. And if your mother hadn’t taken you aside yesterday morning to hand you a small, old and beaten-up looking shoebox, you probably wouldn’t ever have remembered that photo exists.

It’s Eddie, surrounded by trees, and wearing a cloak that had definitely been about twelve sizes too big. The hood swallows most of his head; the only thing that’s really visible is his smile. Honestly, most people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell that that’s Eddie Munson, in that photo.

But you remember taking that. Remember flapping the polaroid around madly while running away.

You shake your head against the memory. Those times are long gone, now. So why...

“Yeah,” you end up whispering, before taking a deep breath and letting out a deeper sigh. “I’unno. When my mom gave me an old box of pictures from middle school, I kind of...” You look over at the fridge and take another, albeit significantly more moderate, drag of your beer. “Dunno. Felt like it.”

Eddie slowly stands and walks over to the fridge. Takes a sip of his beer while he looks at the photo. Takes a quick look at you before taking a step back from the fridge to look at what all else you’ve put up there so far.

“You still got that box?” And bless him, you know he’s trying to be nonchalant about it, but there’s an anxious tone undercutting his voice clear as day. You chuckle and make your way back to your room and to your closet.

It’s only when you pull the small shoebox out and you’ve got it cradled in your arms do you realize the significance of this.

Almost everything that was in the trailer was lost; it’s honestly a miracle anything survived at all. But among the losses, you remember Wayne bemoaning the loss of the few pictures that he’d been able to take of Eddie over the years.

You look down at the box a bit more misty-eyed. You hope that there’s something helpful in here. Something nicer.

When you make it back to the living room, Eddie’s still standing in front of the fridge. His brows are pulled together and the sip he takes of his beer nearly dribbles down his chin. You hold the box a bit closer to your stomach when you move to stand next to him.

“What are we looking at?” you ask, and Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin. You put a hand on his arm and laugh. “Hey there, have a nice time up in the clouds?”

Eddie laughs a bit thinly, points up at the fridge. “I was just. You kept the—the lyrics. From middle school?”

You stare up at the piece of turns, crumpled up ruled paper. You remember carrying that everywhere with you, in middle school and high school. Carried it in your wallet for a while, too, though...

You turn back to the table to gently put the shoebox down. “I didn’t think you’d remember writing that,” you say quietly, pulling up one small stack of photos neatly held together with a rubber band.

Eddie scoffs. “Are you kidding me? You basically whined at me for weeks to come up with a love song for... what was—”

“Shanon,” you add quickly, blindly reaching for your beer bottle while sorting through photos. “Blonde, grey eyes. You were infatuated.”

You don’t see the sad, self-deprecating grin on Eddie’s face.

“Shanon... yeah, no, didn’t write that for her.”

You take a second to bring the bottle down from your mouth. Turn around to look at Eddie, but he’s still resolutely looking at the paper haphazardly stuck to the fridge. It’s at an angle. It’s starting to drive you crazy. Eddie chugs the rest of his beer, puts the empty bottle on the counter by the fridge, and turns around.

“Woah there pal,” you start, chugging your own beer with a wince. You put the bottle back on the table behind you. “What’s that look for?”

You feel like your heart’s beating a frenzy in your throat. You’re pretty sure you just felt a heart palpitation. The look on Eddie’s face is intense in a way you don’t recognize. Not like when he's DMing and he’s about to throw a real wrench in everyone’s plans, and not like in the Upside Down.

No, it feels a lot like how he looks at you out in the fields by the junkyard.

You would take a step back when Eddie starts walking toward you, but you’re already leaning against the table behind you. You try to straighten up to maybe attempt to look less frazzled than you feel.

The beer’s already making your head feel fuzzy and your lips feel numb.

Eddie stops about a foot away from you, and you’re not sure how to feel about the fact that you have to crane your neck up to actually look at him. He opens his mouth, looking down at your with a frown. He tries a few times like this, before sighing and just.

Letting himself slump over to rest his head on your right shoulder.

You stay like that for a bit. You can hear the hitch in Eddie’s breath when he tries, again, to say something. After the third or fourth time, it feels like something’s squeezing your chest. He’s clearly got something on his chest he wants to get off—something heavy—and you know how that feels. How that goes.

Your left hand comes up to brace the back of his head before you can think of the implications.

Whatever. Fuck the implications.

“You can take your time, y’know,” you whisper, slowly slumping back to lean against the table behind you, forcing Eddie to take a step forward if he wants to stay in his spot.

“I can’t, I really can’t.” His voice sounds strained, and you flounder. You’ve never really had to struggle to get people to talk to you—not the people who actually give a fuck about you, anyways. And you can’t think of a single time, barring the obvious fuckery of the Upside Down, when Eddie was hesitant to talk to you.

He gently grabs the hand in his hair and pulls it away to straight himself out again. His eyes are closed when you can see his face again. He takes a deep breath and squeezes your hand.

“Listen—“

The phone rings.

You haven’t even put it up on the wall by the doorway yet. It’s still on the counter, where you’ve left it, right by the fridge.

The shock of it in the quiet of the dining room makes you trip over yourself. Eddie catches you and, practically in the same motion, spins to direct you to the phone. Out of breath, you pick up.

“Ye—hello?”

“Hey, hon,” comes Wayne’s tired greeting. “Sorry if I woke you up, but is Eddie still with you?”

You blink a few times, staring out into nothing. You only wonder for a second why he’d call so late when you’d likely be out cold, but when you turn to face Eddie—now leaning back against the table—the realization comes all at once.

“Ed—yes, oh my god, Wayne, I’m so sorry,” you rush to say, turning back to the counter and cradling the receiver. “Yeah, he helped me unpack and we kind of crashed, I should have had him call—”

“Hey, hey,” Wayne chuckles, and the lightness of the tone helps you breathe a bit easier. “It’s fine. Sorry I woke ya up.”

“Please don’t worry about it,” you reply quickly. “We’ve been up for a bit going through some stuff.”

“I won’t keep you then. Just tell that idiot son of mine to call next time.”

You let out a quiet bark of laughter and promise you will. You don’t think you’ve ever referred to Eddie as his son before. Guess the whole town going to shit changed a few things. Said idiot son has the decency to look a bit ashamed when you turn around and lean back against the counter.

“Probably shoulda called before we called it a night, huh,” Eddie says with a wince.

There’s a beat of silence that’s almost awkward before you clear your throat to speak.

“You uh, you were going to tell me something?”

Eddie stands there, expression not unlike shock on his face. He opens his mouth two or three times but eventually settles on a shrug.

“Don’t worry about it, I can’t even remember what I was going to say.” The end of his sentence almost trails off its so quiet. It’s clearly a lie, but you’re too fuzzy from the beer and fatigue from moving to push the issue any further.

You push yourself off the kitchen counter and brush your hands off on your thighs.

“Well,” you start, feeling a bit awkward while you amble toward the hallway. “I need to go back to bed. Let me know if...” It’s your turn to trail off, because you’re not sure how to end that sentence. Let you know if what, a demodog comes bursting in through the window?

You look anxiously over your shoulder at the window over the sink. It’s fine. It’s nothing, nothing’s there, you’re good. You clear your throat.

“Right, so. I’ll just.”

Eddie nods but doesn’t look at you. Your room is bright with birdsong and the rising sun by the time you fall asleep.

17 July 19861:37AM

You’re not entirely sure what motivated you to get out of bed, climb into your car, and make it to the Munsons’. It’s not like you couldn’t have just grabbed the phone and dialed Eddie’s shiny separate number. (You’re beginning to think the hush money bit was real.) You’ve called each other at the worst times of night and day for dumber shit.

This time, though, the nightmare felt a little too real to ignore and sleep off. Like you usually would have done.

It was like you had never existed; like everyone had gone into the Upside Down without you, without an extraction team, without a backup plan. And you had to watch while Eddie sliced the blanket rope. Horrified, you watched Dustin sprain his ankle in his rush to get back.

Eddie, gasping and choking on his own blood, saying he hadn’t run away this time. Eddie, glassy-eyed and gone, torn to shreds by bats left motionless by what you now know to have been Chief Hopper’s own attack all the way in Russia.

You take a second to control your breathing once you���re at the squat triplex. Eventually you uncurl your stiff and sore fingers from the steering wheel and force yourself out of the car. Your legs feel like jello and your head like lead.

You consider trying to climb up to the third floor, somehow, if only for a second. You know Wayne’s likely to be up so you shouldn’t worry too much about either ringing or knocking but... Shake your head and hit the button for the third floor before you can think more about it and chicken out.

You’re let in surprisingly quickly. When you make it up to door number 3, Wayne’s leaning against the doorway.

“Bit early,” he says, uncrossing his arms once you’re near. Puts a hand on your shoulder and squeezes. “Everything okay?”

“Nightmares,” you answer quietly. You curl and uncurl your fists at your sides.

“Come on,” Wayne says after a beat of silence. “He’s in his room. Coffee?”

You shake your head. With one last squeeze of your shoulder. Wayne wanders back inside, and you aim straight for Eddie’s bedroom door. Your fist is up to knock when Eddie opens the door, looking disheveled but extremely awake.

“Hey,” he says airily, out of breath as he pulls his hair back into a low ponytail. “I was about to head out—you weren’t answering your phone so.”

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything or explain before pulling you in and shutting the door behind you. He throws his jacket—leather only, sans denim, as it has been for a few months now—over the back of the chair as his desk.

Nothing much else is said, which is how these nights usually go. Neither of you need to be rehashing what happened in the Upside Down, the earthquake, your constant passing out. Tonight, though, there is one thing that eats at you. Eddie has to nudge you, sitting next to him on his bed beneath the window, to pass the joint over. When you take it, he makes a point to lean forward to try and get a good look at your face.

“Did... did something happen? Before you got here?” he asks, and the concern in his voice twists your gut unpleasantly.

“It’s just—it’s nightmares. You know how it is.” You make a point not to take too deep of a toke of the joint before passing it back over, turning your head to blow the smoke out through the open window.

You can just barely see Eddie narrowing his eyes at you in your periphery. For a second, when he straightens up and leans back against the wall next to you, you think he’s dropped it.

“If it was just nightmares, you would’ve called.”

You snort and look the other way. Again, though, Eddie nudges you to turn around and take the joint. Carefully and, thankfully, not too quickly, he grabs your wrist as you grab the joint.

“Hey. Come on. Talk to me, please.”

Your eyes burn and you can already feel your nose getting red and itchy. Your whole face feels warm. Either to spare you the embarrassment of it or a second, secret reason, Eddie pulls you into his chest and you just start crying.

You’ve dreamt of people dying before. Tons of times. Even before El tore a massive hole through reality in Hawkins. But that—feeling powerless in a situation you know could’ve happened if you hadn’t just been around and stuck your nose where it arguably shouldn’t have been—and seeing Eddie die in a way you just couldn’t help?

That was brutal.

17 July 19869:12AM

You have no idea when you fell asleep. Your eyes feel sore and dry, your throat feels strange and your neck hurts. You’re cursorily aware that you’re in Eddie’s room—the smell of weed, incense and whatever cologne he wears usually gives it away.

Very quickly, you realize that you’ve fallen asleep on Eddie’s chest at an awkward angle. You’re both barely sitting up, still leaning back against the wall underneath the window. God, you drool on him. Fuck.

Okay, this is fine. You’ve literally had worse.

You take a deep breath and, as smoothly and quickly as you can, roll off the bed and onto your knees. It’s not graceful, but when you look back, Eddie still seems to be sound asleep. You pray to whatever’s out there that he stays that way until his shirt’s dry.

You tiptoe out of the room and turn the knob before shutting the door behind you. The rest of the apartment is empty, and with how late you heard Wayne ambling about, you’re sure he’s not ready to get up any time soon, either.

By the time you leave, there’s breakfast ready to be reheated in the oven and you’ve left a note on the coffee maker saying to just turn it on.

When you walk outside to your car, though the sun’s been up for a while, the fog still clings to the ground. You sit in your car for a few minutes, staring at the water droplets slowly evaporating on the windshield. When your heart rate has gone back down to something human and manageable, you start the car and head home.

13 August 198612:07AM

If you were bubbling with excitement before the concert, now you feel like soda that’s been left out for a few hours. Flat, maybe, but still just as sweet as it was before, if not moreso. You still feel all the enthrallment that you did before and during the concert, but now you feel...

Well, post-concert blues. That satisfied feeling of having witnessed something amazing, but the accompanying sadness and mourning knowing that you’ll never be able to relive this same experience again. It’s come and gone and now all you can do is remember it.

You slap your thighs to bring you out of your own head. This is going to be a good fucking night. Eddie literally bought you tickets to see Judas Priest and drove you both all the way out here. Refused to let you drive for a singular second, too.

“You still that hyped?” Eddie asks, laughing, holding his lighter out to you. You light up your own smoke and laugh.

“Nah, just trying to get my head back in the game. Too much shit rattling around in here.” You tap your head with the lighter before handing it back.  Eddie takes a second before grabbing it, though, and you have to wave your other hand in front of him to snap him out of it.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s out of it,” you laugh, bumping his shoulder with yours when he finally takes the damn lighter back.

Quietly, from inside the van, you can hear the opening bars for Wild Nights.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie grunts, crouching down to tie the messy laces of his right shoe. “I’m the one who drove three hours to get here, and had to convince your parents that I wouldn’t murder you and dump your body in the river.”

You can’t help but cackle. You know for a fact that neither of your parents called the Munson household, but you also know that it’s something that they very easily could have done. Looking out at the White river from your little spot at the state park, you open your mouth to say something about how overprotective Wayne can be, but then something catches your eye.

“They literally,” you start, reaching over to pluck the scarf from Eddie’s back pocket. “Did not do that.” You twist the scarf around in your hands a bit before trying to whip it at his ass. You miss horribly and end up snapping the tip of the scarf on his thigh.

You burst out in laughter, full bellied and unrestrained, when Eddie yelps and topples over to the right. You try to apologize and ask if he’s okay, but you doubt that anything intelligible makes it past you wheezing, squeaking laughter.

“Alright, that’s it,” Eddie grumbles, tossing his half-smoke cigarette into the gravel before stalking towards you. He’s clearly not upset, but you make a mad dash for the riverbank anyways.

The toes of your shoes have just barely touched water before Eddie’s arms wrap around your torso and pull you back. You shriek and kick once or twice before letting yourself go limp.

Half an hour later finds you in some park along the 36, hair and clothes still damp and cheeks sore. You’re both sitting in the back of the van, doors open, passing a joint between you and looking out onto the park.

“I like what you’ve done with this old bitch,” you comment, tapping the plush—carpeting? blanket?—that Eddie’s laid down in the back. “Is there a camping mat under this or something?”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, been going out in the woods after work sometimes just to like... relax, y’know?” You nod; you ran to the woods a lot as a kid, too. “Right, so I kinda made it more comfy to get high in. That’s it.”

When he passes you the joint, you look back at the front where you’d left the scarf. Handkerchief? You’ve had the question in mind ever since March: is he the S or is he the M?

“Seriously?” Eddie balks. “That’s what’s been on your mind this whole time?”

You turn to look at him and blink owlishly.

“Oh. Oh god, please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”

Eddie laughs, and it almost sounds a little mean. You can feel the heat creeping up your neck and making its way to your face. Your cheeks itch with it.

“Right, you’re too baked and tired for this,” Eddie declares, and even to your ears he sounds way too composed and, frankly, sober. Though you guess he’s maybe had a bit more time to get used to smoking weed than you have.

“What, no!” You whine, trying to reach across him to snag the joint out of his left hand. Unfortunately, the best that’s done for you is get you splayed across Eddie’s lap once you inevitably lose your balance.  “Fuck you.”

Eddie’s almost unnaturally still beneath you. And you’d look up at him, if you could, but even fucking cooked, you’re very aware that you’re laid across a man’s lap.

Your throat feels too tight when you swallow. You move to brace an arm on Eddie’s thigh to prop yourself up, but his hand on the back of your head has you freezing in place. When the hand starts petting down your head, your neck and your spine, only to start again at the top, you start to go limp. This isn’t so bad.

“Yeah,” Eddie scoffs, and you get the feeling you’ve spoken out loud again. “You would think that.” The embarrassment is enough to make your eyes sting. There’s a beat of silence, and then Eddie leans over to whisper in your ear, “Good girl.”

You swallow thickly. You had intended to follow-up by asking whether or not Eddie was even interested in the opposite gender. But you suppose that answers that.

There’s a tension in your gut and shoulders that makes you second guess yourself. You get the words out before you can think too much about it.

“What do I have to do for you to say that again?”

The hand petting you takes its time reaching the bottom of your spine, and then stays there. Warm against your lower back, and just high enough to say he’s not actually touching your ass. Awfully cordial.

“Depends,” Eddie hums, and you hear him take another toke of the joint before crushing the tip of it between his fingers and chucking the extinguished butt somewhere you can’t see. “Why?”

This time, you do prop yourself up, both hands on Eddie’s thigh. If it had been anyone else, the distance between your faces would have been the epitome of discomfort.

“I want you to say it again,” you answer quietly. It’s getting harder to keep your eyes on his and not let them drift down.

“Say what again?” Eddie asks, and you don’t know if you love or hate the shit eating grin on his face. You should have expected this, though; putting you on the spot was part of the whole point, wasn’t it?

“I-I want you to...” you start, but your throat feels too small for the words that are trying to come out. Eddie’s hand at your lower back comes up to rub comforting circles between your shoulder blades. Your face and neck are on fire and everything feels itchy.

“Come on,” Eddie whispers. You realize that you’ve been staring at his mouth, and when you look, he is very much looking down at your mouth. “Won’t laugh. Promise.”

The sigh that leaves you almost surprises you.

“I-I want you to—I want you to call me a good girl. Again. Please.”

The hand between your shoulders makes its way forward to cup your jaw.

“Good girl,” Eddie breathes, and it’s like your whole body vibrates, shudders with the satisfaction of it. “Fuck,” he chuckles, swiping his thumb across your cheekbone. “You’re really into that.”

You want to say that you shrugged, but the reality is that the sound that comes out of your mouth couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a whimper.

“Can I—” Eddie starts asking, but you cut him off nearly right away.

“Yes.”

You would think kissing your childhood best friend, whom you’d lost touch with for several years and had recently gone through several traumatic events with, would be somewhat awkward and clumsy. But, unlike when you were teenagers, you and Eddie both, clearly, had the advantage of some gained experience in the meanwhile.

There’s no chastity in the kiss; from the moment his mouth locks with yours, it’s open-mouthed and breathless. Eddie pulls you closer, helps you sit across his lap properly, and you fist your hands in his shirt. In his brand new Judas Priest shirt. You know he doesn’t even particularly like Turbo, as an album. Almost none of it is his preferred style.

You whine into the kiss, and you chase Eddie’s lips when he pulls away. He helps shift you off his lap and quickly instructs you to move back and lie down. The van is plunged into near pitch-black. You move back until you feel what you think is the back of the driver’s seat. You don’t lie back yet, instead reaching out for Eddie.

Your hand knocks into what’s apparently his arm. His mouth finds your again in the dark as your fingers find their way into his hair. You gasp when Eddie roughly pulls you down, firmly gripping your hips one second and cradling your head to make sure you don’t hit it the next.

“You sure this is fine?” Eddie asks, though his lips are moving down to your neck, teeth nipping at the skin.

“It’s fine, this is fine,” you rush to say, letting your hands wander up under Eddie’s shirt. You’re  sure to keep your touch light when you come across the scars. “This is so fucking fine,” you breathe.

Eddie’s shirt rises with your wandering hands, and he gives you a second to pull it over his head. You have no idea where you toss it and you honestly couldn’t care less. His hands, in return, take the opportunity to make their way under your shirt, and you want to scream. Your entire body feels like a coil being wound tighter.

It’s unfamiliar, how intense it is. You don’t think you mind.

Eddie knocks your knees open to settle between your legs rather than straddling you, though you’re more preoccupied by your shirt—identical to Eddie’s, because you couldn’t help yourself—being peeled off and thrown into an equally unknowable direction. His hands on your ribs feel like irons smoothing out the trembling wrinkles of them, and the shuddering sigh that you let out makes Eddie chuckle.

“Poor thing,” he laments, one hand at your waist prompting you to arch your back, the other sliding up your back to somehow expertly undo the clasp of your bra. “Been holding out for a while, huh.”

It’s not a question. You twitch, about to bring your hands up to hide your face, but—there’s no real point, is there? In this kind of darkness, it’s not like he’d be able to see how red your face is. You have a feeling he’d reprimand you for trying to hide, anyways.

“Didn’t think you’d wanna look at me,” you breathe into his mouth. Saying it out loud makes it feel silly, especially here and now. You don’t hold it against him when Eddie laughs. You can hear the shock in it.

“We’re both idiots,” he mutters, trailing kisses from the corner of your mouth, down your neck, nipping at the collarbone on the way. He presses his lips to your sternum, hands gliding up your sides to palm at your breasts. Nothing like the fumbling messes of your first adult years; Eddie’s hands are slow and deliberate. He’s not feeling you up for his own sake—though you don’t doubt that it in no small way contributes to the hardening length you feel growing at the junction of your thigh—but for yours. This feels entirely like a massage for your benefit.

To his credit, it’s working. Whatever tension you were holding in your shoulders is slowly melting away under his hands.

His mouth continues its trail down, licking a stripe up your navel before he stops at the button of your shorts. You don’t let him ask, you just unbutton them for him. He doesn’t move until he hears you start to pull at the zipper. He doesn’t leave you time to pull it down all the way before he’s tugging your shorts off like they’ve personally offended him.

The cold air makes you realize he’s taken your underwear with them. He lightly rests his forehead on your stomach and breathes in. It almost makes you choke.

“God you smell good,” he growls against your skin. While his mouth trails kisses back up your torso, you feel one hand sliding gently up your chest to rest at the base of your throat. The other slides two fingers through your slit.

Eddie groans like he’s in pain.

“I won’t—not here, fuck,” Eddie mutters, nuzzling between your breasts, and you buck your hips into his hands when one of his slicked fingers finds your clit. “First time we gotta do it right but this, we can—I can give you this,” he whispers, so low you figure he must be talking to himself more than he is to you.

One finger prods at your entrance, and then he’s got two fingers inside of you. The first few pumps, though heaven, don’t do much. But then Eddie curls his fingers, and it’s like he’s a puppeteer who’s pulled on all of your strings all at once. He exhales sharply and sounds entirely too pleased with himself when he speaks.

“There she is,” he whispers, mouthing at the spot on your neck just below your ear. The warmth  makes you shiver and clamp down on his finger. “Fuck, that’s it.”

Eddie’s hand practically turns into a machine. You don’t think you’ve ever been able to get yourself so close to cumming in less than a minute. The hand at the base of your neck creeps just a little bit higher. When you gasp at the pressure his fingers apply, you have to grab at Eddie’s wrist to keep his hand there.

“You’re perfect,” Eddie sighs, and you can feel more than see him toss his head back. “Fuck, wish I could see your face right now.”

“Next time,” you reply quickly. “Please, fuck, I’m so close, please please please,” you whine, reaching your other hand down to rub at your clit.

“Holy shit that’s so fucking hot,” Eddie groans, and bites down on your neck, just above where his hand collars it nicely.

The sting is what sends you careening over the edge, cumming with a drawn-out moan. Your hips jerk erratically in spite of yourself, chasing Eddie’s fingers as he fucks you through your orgasm. When your arms go limp, you distantly register the sound of his belt coming undone and the distinct sound of him spitting. There’s a slick sound and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that.

That Eddie Munson is jerking off over your naked body.

“Fucking christ,” you whisper, out of breath, and force yourself to sit up.

“Fuck,” Eddie moans, and you blindly reach out for him. He grabs one of your hands on his chest, laces his fingers tightly through yours. Your other hand, however, makes it down to his, wrapped around and pump his cock.

You shimmy back just enough to be able to lean down to lick the tip.

“Jesus f—I’m gonna,” Eddie chokes out. He doesn’t finish his sentence when you bat his hand away and wrap your lips around the tip of his cock and suck.

You swallow more of him down as he cums, swallowing around him once or twice before he brushes a hand up your forehead and lightly pushes you back and away. You kiss his navel, instead, then his sternum, until he pulls you up with two hands cupping your face, and makes you kiss him, instead.

You didn’t think you’d be turned on by a guy kissing you after you’ve just swallowed his load, but there are apparently a lot of things you’ve yet to discover about yourself.

Carefully, mouths still touching but not quite kissing, Eddie maneuvers you both so that he can lie down on his back, and you can lay your head on his chest.

You throw a leg over his for good measure.

“I’m not moving anymore,” you groan, burrowing your face into his chest.

“Can’t blame ya,” Eddie says, breathless, and you can’t help but laugh.

There’s a moment of silence, and then both of you start laughing. The bouncing of his chest makes it hard to stop laughing. Your gut hurts, your cheeks hurt, and you are entirely too sweaty. You could not care less.

“So,” Eddie starts, once you’ve both been able to calm down and breathe like normal people again. “You mentioned a next time?”

You hum and close your eyes against the darkness in the back of the van.

“Mm, it did not escape my notice that the handcuffs were something you managed to rescue from the trailer,” you mumble, throwing an arm over Eddie’s chest and squeezing.

“...I don’t think I hate the idea of you in chains, actually.”

September 2nd, 19867:58AM

You’re woken up entirely too early by your phone ringing. You don’t need to look at the time to know it’s too early; if you can’t hear cars driving around yet, it’s too fucking early.

“Mmn, gmorning, what,” you slur, wedging the phone between your chin and shoulder and rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“Morning to you too, sunshine,” Eddie greets you brightly, and the warmth that bubbles up in your chest at the sound of his voice feels almost euphoric.

“You’re a weapon,” you say fondly, moving from where you’ve finally wall-mounted the phone to the wall by the fridge and making your way to the kitchen counter, which you promptly hop up on. “Wait,” you whisper, leaning forward to look at the calendar you’ve stuck to the fridge. “It’s September 2nd.”

“Mhm, congratulations, you can correctly identify the date.”

You ignore the snark.

You have entirely forgotten to ask Eddie whether or not he’d been made to repeat his senior year—again—despite everything that had happened over spring break. It felt awkward to ask now, though.

“You, uh,” you stutter instead, trying to find the least offensive way to go about finding out. “You’re calling, uh, early. Special occasion?”

“Of course,” Eddie says haughtily, and you can almost imagine the expression on his face. The kind that says ‘I know something you don’t and I know you’re too much of a coward to ask about it’.

“Come on just say it man,” you plead, letting your head fall back and reaching up to keep the receiver in place.

“My lady, I’m sure I don’t know what you speak of.”

“Fucking dick,” you say under your breath. Take a deep breath, bring your head back up and square your shoulder. “Edward Munson, did they or did they not let you graduate?”

Eddie lets out a bark of laughter so loud you have to pull the receiver away from your ear for a second. His tone and demeanor make you want to believe that he’s finally been cut some slack, but...

You manage to get a single sound out before there’s a knock at your door. You hold the phone away from yourself again, narrow your eyes at it like it’s Eddie in your hands instead of the receiver, and put it back to your ear. You cut off whatever he was saying when you speak again.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why there’s someone knocking on my door at,” you pause, turning to look at the time on the stove. “One past eight in the fucking morning?”

“Dunno, sounds important if it’s this early though,” Eddie replies, a bit too easily, and you sigh.

“Whatever, I’m putting the phone down. Don’t hang up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You huff and put the phone down on the counter, making sure it won’t fall off. By the time you make it to your front door, whoever’s there has decided that knocking nonstop is clearly the best way to get your attention.

You honestly should have expected Dustin Henderson at your doorstep at eight in the morning on back to school day. He’s suspiciously got an arm behind his back. You sigh, again, and unlock the deadbolt and undo the latch before opening the door.

“Alright,” you say, one hand on your hip and the other hand held out. “Fork it over.”

“I have no idea—” Dustin starts to say, but the deadpan stare you level at him makes him clear his throat instead. “Right! Here you go.”

“Thank you kindly, now hold up,” you say, holding a finger up and quickly walking over to your fridge to pull a bottle of water out. When you’re halfway back to the door, you call out, “Heads up!” and toss the bottle over.

Dustin barely manages to catch the thing, but doesn’t do so without a comical amount of fumbling.

“Awesome, now that you’ve done your Dungeon Master’s bidding, go the fuck to school, nerd,” you chastise, flicking the bill of Dustin’s cap.

“Man, you’re mean, you know that?”

“Sure, that’s why I’m making sure you’re staying hydrated on that damn bike,” you retort, crossing your arms and leaning against the doorframe. “Go on now, shoo. Go get an education.”

You wait until you can’t see Dustin down the road anymore before closing and locking the door, and wandering back over to the phone.

“Alright,” you say, wedging the receiver under your chin again and tearing open the envelope you’d been handed. “This better be worth it. I was up until 3am and I’m fucking beat.”

Eddie stays quiet, but you can practically feel the frantic energy of him through the phone. You pull the paper—papers, it’s a whole damn stack of them—and then promptly drop them all on the kitchen floor when you catch the title on the first page.

“Edward,” you start, tone harsh.

“Hey, woah, okay,” Eddie  rushes to start. “Okay, I graduated, right? Like, everyone was let through because of all the bullshit. That’s not really important right now though?”

“Ed,” you start again, lower and calmer. “That thing said ‘Thrasher Records’. I don’t fucking know who they are but there’s fucking record in the name, babe.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. You can hear the face-splitting smile. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, and you know he can hear the smile splitting your face, too.

You don’t change out of your sleep shorts and Judas Priest shirt. You’re at the Munsons’ in just under five minutes—which, yes, is probably a little bit criminally fast, but it’s not like Hopper’s gonna care—only to find out that Edward fucking Munson hadn’t even told his own damn father.

You give your boyfriend just enough shit for him to want to make up for it.

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@bramblequill @storiesbyrhi @averagestudent03 @alovesongtheywrote @doratheignora @fnlyroe

[wewebaggit]

ST5 Will Byers Bingo (Guesses ofc)

Will has natural powers and his connection to Henry/Vecna/001 predates his abduction.

OR the connection exists cuz of the vine but henry/vecna /one figured out will had powers AND he tried to abduct him.

OR Will was in a trance n maybe he was being abducted as a vecna sacrifice before he figured out some new method? I still dunno how the sacrifices came to be the chosen method?

The abduction was possible thanks to El inadvertently opening the gate and Vecna kidnaps him after putting him in a trance like Max. So the shed thing never happened in RU but was a trance. The gooey shit found there. Honestly, no clue. The demogorgon? Idk.

Brenner put in the Soteria into Will in the UD/outside and put him back in. Idk. Hence, Will recognising Brenner. I don't think he's a lab kid.

The Soteria in fact weakened the connection between Vecna and Will and hence the next time he went after Will he had to commandeer the Shadow Monster to possess him. However, he was unsuccessful again and the shadow particles were exorcised from Will.

ST3 is a big load of bullshit, cuz the puberty monster chose to go after people done with puberty and really was a half assed attempt at some metaphor that didn't travel. However, it succeeded in copying El's powers which he needed for opening gates.

Will was ignored because maybe the shadow particles that remained weren't enough to possess him. Like he had needed the whole ass shadow monster to go inside of him in ST2. So, he created an army of the undead or whatevs. Infecting them with .......... puberty or something. Idk. Also, El was present this time. Or maybe he got alerted when she looked into Billy's mind.

Vecna wants Will to create his new world and no longer needs El. So kill her I guess. Easier in general for him. Not like he needs to open/close gates anymore.

Brenner is tracking Will. As the Soteria subdues powers and tracks location or whatever. He doesn't really need Will cuz he wants to kill Henry. He's useless for that. He just needs for Will to not know of his powers and regain his memories. Just needs to stay away from Vecna till he kills him/subdues him. Whatever was his plan.

But he needs El to kill Vecna in the first place.

Phone lines blown up? Well they were literally blown up after the shit that took place there. Not that there would have been anyone to answer anyway. Now Mike whining about it before that? I think he lied.

Henry/Vecna/001 and Will meet. Duh. He appeals to Will's kindness and sensitivity and tries to win him over by revealing his powers. Removing Will's soteria maybe?

Meanwhile nobody is aware of Will's powers n him being the Creator God lmao. They think it's veccy/el. Also because they're all separated from Will atp. I think the veccy/will confrontation is gonna be an intimate event and not an open for all soiree.

Maybe it entirely happens in his head. (guesses n wishes whatevs)

By the time everyone does figure out abt Will tho, it's already to late. In that Will and veccy real meet up has happened.

I don't want no fuckall everyone protects Will shit happening, i want his importance to be a twist for ALL. It already isn't for the audience so at least for the characters on the show.

What else? Swear I had many jumbled thoughts n guesses n this is all i can think of right now. Might add to it later.

[herequeerandsomeotherthingsmaybe]

when i say that albert vanderboom is my favorite character, i don’t mean to apologize for him. the entire reason he’s so funny is that this man has NO justification for what he’s done. i don’t even think feral would be the right word, he’s literally too good at ruining everything

while rose is like oh? dig up timepieces? collect sacrifices? catch a fish in a bear trap to give to the man in a well? just because she was asked to by a ghost, albert does fuckall because he dislikes his family (sometimes for no reason). don’t get me wrong, the beehive thing was messed up, but every seven year old is an asshole and he hasn’t learned what a proportional reaction is

(tpw spoilers) and then on top of that, as soon as rose is in the picture, albert just becomes the most doting dad, as far as we’re aware. the family picture is literally the only time we’e ever seen her smile. and his letters to her are all literally “<<<<333333 i love you you’re very smart can you please do this one tiny thing that’ll revive me and change the fabric of your world <<<<<<333333 love, your dad”

like he is STILL doing shit just because he wants to. this man has no reason to be this off the rails and i love him for it

[theradioghost]

for real though I guess I haven't talked about it here but. so there's a song called "The World Is Saved" about the feeling of finishing video games and it is associated with MANY memories for me and I often tear up while watching it but most recently it makes me think about how i went completely over the fucking deep end for monster hunter world.

i'm adhd/asd, i'm disabled, and I spend a lot of time sitting around doing fuckall because it's what i'm capable of, so when I saw this thing with interesting creature design at #1 on a youtube video literally titled something like "10 video games for people with too much time on their hands," i went okay, sign me up, i already owned it because of a previous encounter with the feral madness of the steam summer sale, i just got a laptop specifically to handle games and it runs planet zoo so it'll run anything, let's go

and then. the thing is i don't mostly play games with real time combat. the first game i ever felt like i had meaningfully gained skill at a non-insignificant combat system was breath of the wild. and mhw is like "here's 17 different weapons good luck" and i panicked and googled best beginner weapon and that's why I main s&s. but i've never mained ANYTHING before!!!! i did the first fights and did badly but went 'holy shit, i like this? it feels good?' so i kept doing it! i paid attention! i learned combos! i fell in love with the gorgeous atmosphere of this game, the music, the characters, the world, the design, feeling myself getting to know each environment and each individual monster and getting better at them. wiring a whole new portion of my brain with instincts for this game. it was fucking exhilarating.

and i'm still not Good at it! there are so many systems I still don't understand and i've put over 300 hours into it! i haven't touched any of the other weapons! I am nowhere even CLOSE to done with the endgame content! the only people i've ever played multiplayer with are my siblings! but holy shit. that night where I sat down to do the Namielle quest and it turned out to be one of my absolute favorite fights and monsters, where the sound design and the way she moved just blew me away, and I was so excited I decided to go straight into the end of the story. i ran the ruiner nergigante fight down to the fucking wire and i was exhausted. it was midnight and i am 100% not in any way used to fifty. straight. minutes. of nonstop need-to-be-the-best-i-am-capable-of video game combat. but i did it.

and then i wanted to go to bed. but then fucking shara ishvalda shows up and i think fuck yes i'm going to bed this is a tomorrow problem. but then the fucking anime-ass characters point out how far i've come, all that i've done, and my brain goes FUCK IT. WE BALL.

i have tried shara ishvalda multiple times since then and i have run out of time, every single time. i don't fucking know how i did it then, i haven't found anything saying it has less health in Paean of Guidance or anything. I think i had about 90 seconds left and fuck me, that thing's second phase actually freaked me out (it was 1 AM! i was tired and wired!) not helped by the fuckin. Exorcist music. but i did it, and then i walked around in circles in the dark for half an hour.

every time i listen to the soundtrack it all comes back. i put some mhw music on last night and sent myself into a frenzy. i've had some fucking powerful, emotional experiences with games but none that made me feel powerful in quite that way. I'm dabbling with the Iceborne endgame content a lot more slowly; I haven't touched Rise, but I did play Stories 1 on iOS and then snag Tri and Generations Ultimate, and I'm definitely in for the long haul with this series now. but shit, man. i guess this is a recommendation for monster hunter world, if you've got a fuck ton of time to spend.

[mrchalamet-mrstyles]

Not Armie attending a street art event (with a new gf?) while Liz makes sure their children are having fun carving pumpkins for Halloween. He's completely absconded from his fatherly duties, it appears. But that's fine! He and Tim bought a house!

Charmies demand to know why she is holding the kids hostage!

How they are still utterly delusional about the real Armie Hammer?

I'll never understand how they got this far gone from the reality of who he is. Fanfic really did them a disservice, didn't it? Imagine truly believing she kidnapped those kids while he just sits by and let's her? She even brought them back to LA where he could have easily gotten a court order that they remain. What does he do? Nothing. Just goes on living his "best life".

If those kids manage to be any semblance of normal as adults it will 100% be down to Liz and her parenting. He's done fuckall.

[dailyjamm6]

Nubilian Dialogues - Act I, Part II Jun'ako: there isn't any difference between you and any other person. Jun'ako: do you think of yourself as separate or something? Mihaìl: Maybe, i don't- i don't fucking know. Jun'ako: don't you get in the very least that like, you hurting yourself would hurt you? Mihaìl: 'Fcourse i do goddamnit. Jun'ako: then why are you doing this? Mihaìl: Because i am for fuck sake. Mihaìl: do you think i like this or something? Mihaìl: We are the very feel left, we are beyond carrying our own torches holding the very future of our very people upon our fucking shoulders. Mihaìl: Its a task so perplexingly important so fucking weightful that if we fuck up one thing it will affect all of fucking reality for years to come. Mihaìl: And as a last fucking fuck you to our whole species, to our whole fucking beingdom, existance whatever the fuck, they pick me out of everyone to be one of the fuckers to lead this new society or some shit. Mihaìl: You may say like "well doesn't that give you purpose or something" and fuck no because so far what the fuck have i done? Mihaìl: Its not because i've been shoved into the spotlight that i even fucking deserve to be here, i didn't even know why i was back then and now simply taking my time to think why the fuck i'm here is in itself negligence. Mihaìl: Feels like fate has just bounced me around or someshit like a dolphin laughing at my demise, but even that would be disingenuous because it would mean thinking my existance even matters in the big scheme to begin with. Mihaìl: You are a heroine Jun, i'm fuckall. Jun'ako: ... Mihaìl: hate me all you want. Jun'ako: you are a fucking idiot if you think I'd hate you for that. Jun'ako: if anything I hate you more for suggesting I'd ever hate you over shit like this. Jun'ako: I get that no matter how much I say "you don't need to prove yourself to anyone" you'd never listen. Jun'ako: I get why you feel the way you do and I'm sorry for what you've been going through. Jun'ako: but you better than anyone else here knows no one would get anywhere without the help of all others. Jun'ako: I can't fucking count the amount of times either Enkidu, You or Dumuea contributed the group, or helped me Jun'ako: specially the time you actually saved me. Jun'ako: how can someone who actually saved someone they regard as a "heroine" not see the good they did within their own mindset? Jun'ako: and even then, does it even matter if you "deserve to be here", if you "are worthy of being here", the fact is you fucking are here and no, you aren't incompetent. Jun'ako: if instead of fucking belittling yourself you focused on seeing the ways you have actively helped... - Mihaìl shoves his face between his hands - Mihaìl: i know. Mihaìl: maybe i'm just trying to rationalize this deep void inside of me, i don't know. Mihaìl: ugh-, i don't know. Jun'ako: thats fine, I get you didn't mean to be rude. Mihaìl: although i don't know how i feel about showing my vulnerabilities to you so openly... heh. Jun'ako: if anything I see that as a good thing. Jun'ako: it means you trust me, no? Mihaìl: I guess, but still. Mihaìl: Well, 'tleast i hope this doesn't create any sort of wedge or i don't know. - She punches his back - Mihaìl: Fuck- Jun'ako: stop thinking i'll just bail out. Jun'ako: you are someone i care about a lot. Mihaìl: I also like you... -r company. Jun'ako: what was that hesitation there- Mihaìl: Shut up... Jun'ako: anyhow. - She says as she gets up - Jun'ako: just know I'll be there if ya ever need. - She smiles, he mildly reciprocates, and then she leaves. -

[catebees]

Still thinking about Marian and her way to approach her own feelings.

She was always too busy, "introspection is for the rich folk who have fuckall to do all day. I've got fields to till" (or whatever, I still don't know what she'd do in Ferelden, definitely not mercenary work).

Because of this she very rarely knows what's going on in her head. For most of the time it was a constant whispered uneasiness, like an ache in your bones that will never really leave if you keep breaking your back. And it's not like she can stop, so like. Why address it. It just became background noise.

I wonder how different it would all have been if she had had the tools to figure it out sooner. If she could have been more comfortable in her gender identity, if she could have understood earlier what exactly she wanted and what she could give.

She doesn't realise she doesn't want to be a "woman" until inquisition. "I thought it was normal to dislike being called a lady." Everybody called her Hawke for so long and that felt so good because she was almost a thing, Just A Person. Bull and Krem just look at her like 👁👁

And the same thing goes for romance. She always had people she found interesting and wanted to get to know, people she wanted to impress. She definitely craved some sort of intimacy but never really knew how to get it. A bit of bread shared in the shade with the farmers or a cold drink after work, a job well done, laughter, a slap on the back - that went a long way. That was enough.

The first year in Kirkwall was pretty much the same, the people were different but the beats were there. She probably picked one or two interesting people of the group to exchange looks with and have something to talk about.

Then Varric comes around. Then Merrill and Isabela, Fenris, Anders, Sebastian. That empty space gets filled. And it stays like that for years. And she would be satisfied. Except that this time she gets picked. And when she looks across the table Fenris looks back and it's not some almost-stranger. With them, she could never imagine anything happening. It was a past time. She would always fold before anyone could take her up on her offer.

Fenris chips away at her defences without her noticing, and the same happens to him. And at one point they realise that they can't stay apart.

When I say at one point I mean extremely late. With all that happens in Kirkwall there's no time to stop and figure out what this sort of feeling means. Fenris is the one who initiates things and when he leaves, all she worries about is his wellbeing.

Years later, he is the one asking to try again. And that's what makes it all starts to make sense. "So this is what it feels like to be happy". Which is extremely dangerous.

I said it before but Marian thinks she's cursed. Not like "a witch put a spell on me" but "From Clear Evidence, everybody I love gets taken away from me." It doesn't help that the city is also Disaster Central.

(At one point she develops a sympathy for Saemus Dumar. Nothing romantic, he's much younger than her, but she likes him. Maybe she sees some hope for the future in that kid. She maybe talked with him twice but every time she sees his about she hopes he has a nice day. When he gets killed she wonders if she somehow brought that on him.)

So she never tells Fenris she loves him. They start sleeping -just sleeping- together and it's so obvious how much they care for each other.

The sex is there. It's nice, it's fun. It's a way for Fenris to savour his freedom and to replace bad memories with much sweeter ones. Secretly, she's also conditioning herself. Replacing her first reaction to love with happiness instead of fear.

Some mornings when they're in their new little home in Ferelden, Bethany will go out early with Peach and stay in town for a while. The house is small and they all sleep in one room. When Marian wakes up Fenris is sitting at her side with breakfast. Sometimes they thank Bethany for the privacy. More often they let the hours go by in bed, finally being allowed to slow down.

[lunar-fey]

got sister to finally agree to me beginning the long process that will be me explaining the lore of every kingdom hearts game to her 👍 skerples will be there also ofc

[honestlyvan]

What scene did they change?

In reference to Mythra’s skirt? Literally the first scene she’s in, she has at least two panty shots I’m pretty fucking certain weren’t there the first time we played through it, and I can’t recall them being in the cutscenes when I rewatched them just a while back for research. Also, there are plenty more blink-and-you’ll-miss-it angles, to the point where my friend who doesn’t actually constantly obsess over Mythra’s ass started noticing and getting bothered by it.

Granted, the physics of the skirts on everyone seem wonkier now than they did when we played through the game the first time (I’ve also been noticing some Bullshit with Poppi QT's skirt -- clipping issues and the like that didn’t happen before), and I may be wrong about the model being changed, but there’s definitely more Fuckery(tm) going on with her skirt, now, than there was before.